At their core. compliance officers are problem-solvers. They wrestle with thorny questions every day: How do we implement a global gifts-and-entertainment policy across jurisdictions with vastly different cultural norms? How do we balance business pressures with anti-corruption obligations? How do we address new risks like AI itself?

Traditionally, compliance officers have relied on their teams, external counsel, and regulators for perspective. But now, there is another partner available: AI as a co-thinker. A recent Harvard Business Review article, How AI Can Help Managers Think Through Problems by Elisa Farri and Gabriele Rosani, proposed that generative AI is not simply a productivity booster. They argued that AI can be a thought partner that can help managers frame problems, weigh trade-offs, and refine decision-making. For compliance professionals, this opens an exciting frontier.

Instead of seeing AI as just a summarization or monitoring tool, we can use it to think with us about compliance challenges. Here are some of the ways it can do so.

AI can help frame compliance problems more clearly

One of the hardest parts of compliance work is framing the problem framing. Regulators do not hand us neat checklists, rather they hand us principles, expectations, and enforcement actions. It’s up to us to translate these into workable policies and controls.

Hui Chen, co-founder of the compliance consultancy CDE and former compliance consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice’s fraud division, has long advocated that compliance professionals need to ask questions, as she did on a recent Radical Compliance podcast. By “co-thinking” with AI, compliance officers can do so. Through asking questions with AI, you can re-frame perspectives. Don’t just throw a problem at AI and expect an answer, though. Use AI to refine the question. A well-framed compliance issue is easier to analyze, explain, and ultimately solve.

AI strengthens root cause analysis in compliance investigations

Root cause analysis is central to modern compliance. Regulators do not just want misconduct identified; they want to know why it happened and how you will prevent it going forward. Yet too often, root cause analysis gets bogged down in assumptions or limited perspectives. AI co-thinking can transform root cause analysis from a static checklist into a dynamic dialogue, driving richer insights.

AI dialogues can be useful to explore underlying causes systematically. For compliance officers, this can be a game-changer. Imagine an investigation into repeated expense-report fraud. AI can walk you through potential cultural drivers (“tone at the top,” sales pressure), structural flaws (weak approval workflows), and training gaps. It can then push back: “Are you overlooking incentives?” or “What if the issue is inadequate third-party vetting?”

AI supports compliance leadership and mindset shifts

Most especially in 2025, compliance is not and indeed cannot be static. Risks are changing at a record pace. Compliance professionals can use AI to help teams reflect on change. One prompt might be “Act as a compliance coach guiding a regional manager through adopting a risk-based mindset for third-party approvals.” AI can then walk the manager through scenarios, pose self-assessment questions, and suggest daily practices to internalize the change.

All of this means that AI can democratize leadership development in compliance. By embedding coaching into AI assistants, compliance leaders can scale mindset change while reinforcing culture across the enterprise.

AI encourages reflective and ethical decision-making

Finally, compliance is about judgment. Not every decision can be reduced to a policy or rulebook. Whether deciding how to respond to a gray-area hospitality offer or whether to self-disclose a violation, compliance officers must weigh trade-offs. Some questions AI could pose to a compliance officer could include “What risks might we be missing? What would regulators expect? What precedent are we setting?” 

AI ensures compliance officers approach decisions with greater ethical clarity. Put another way, it is the Socratic method in digital form.

AI should not be seen as replacing compliance judgment, but as sharpening it. By making space for reflection, AI helps ensure that compliance decisions are thoughtful, principled, and defensible.

From automation to co-thinking

For too long, AI has been viewed as a back-office automation tool; summarizing, monitoring, drafting. But AI can do much more.

It can think with us.

AI can be a thought partner for compliance professionals. AI can help to frame problems, strengthen root cause analysis, anticipate stakeholder reactions, support mindset shifts, and foster reflective decision-making. For compliance officers under increasing pressure from regulators and boards, that partnership could be transformative.

The path forward is clear: stop asking “What can AI do for compliance?” and start asking, “How can AI help compliance think better?”

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